The Barometer Online

Issue date: 11/14/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Sam Leinen Junior Neoma Palmer finished 36th at the West Regional Cross Country meet this past weekend in Portland, helping the Beavers grab 13th place team honors.

PORTLAND - With recent illnesses plaguing the team and facing a course with a muddy terrain, the OSU cross country team had its challenges heading into the NCAA West Regional on Saturday.

But with one last chance to run a personal record and take the sour taste out of their mouths from an eighth place conference finish, the Beavers had a lot to run for at Blue Lake Park in Portland.

And led by a strong performance by junior Neoma Palmer, the Beavers snagged a 13th place team finish, which was an excellent way to conclude a successful third season, according to head coach Kelly Sullivan.

"This region is really, really good and I was very, very pleased with how we raced today," Sullivan said. "A little over the halfway mark as a team we were probably in eighth or ninth place, and we faded a little at the end, but I liked how we came out aggressive today."

Palmer, who completed the mushy 6,000-meter course in 22:27, finished in 36th place, four spots higher than her finish at the Pac-10 Championships two weeks ago. It also marked the first time this season that someone other than Kaitlin Poggi was the top finisher for the Beavers.

"Palmer ran a great race, I was very pleased with that," Sullivan said. "It might have been her last race in college, even though she has a year of eligibility left, but she ran really strong today."

Although Poggi wasn't Oregon State's top finisher, the junior still crossed the finish line in 57th place out of a field of 199 runners.

Rounding out the top five Beavers in the team scores were freshmen Krista Stengal (91st, 23:29.70) and Hayley Oveson (102nd, 23:36.20) and junior Ashley Francis (122nd, 23:53.58). The Beavers, who were ranked ninth in the latest West Region poll, finished with a team score of 395 points.

Unlike the slow start out of the gates at the Pac-10 Championships, the Beavers were aggressive right from the starting gun. And at the halfway mark of the race, Oregon State was in the top ten in the team standings.

Team illness had been going around since the week leading up to the Pac-10 Championships and Stengal and Oveson - who are roommates at OSU and were the Beavers number three and four runners on Saturday - were both victims this last week.

"We don't want to use it as an excuse, but we've been a little snake bitten the last few weeks with people getting sick," Sullivan said. "It was bound to happen that Oveson and Stengal, who are roommates, would both get sick, but they ran great today considering that they were a bit under the weather."

Just like at the Pac-10 Championships, the Stanford women dominated the field with a team score of 42 points, which was 30 higher than runner-up Cal-Santa Barbara. Pac-10 individual champion Arianna Lambie of Stanford cruised to another victory with a time of 20:58.85. The Beavers finished eighth as a team among the Pac-10 schools, the same place they finished at the Pac-10 Championships.

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